


Fight, Flight, Freeze, or Fawn

by RowlettLesbian



Series: Naruto the Fox [3]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Family, Father-Son Relationship, Fluff, Gen, Nara Shikamaru-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-21
Updated: 2020-08-21
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:20:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26024098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RowlettLesbian/pseuds/RowlettLesbian
Summary: Two-year-old Shikamaru is troublesome for his father, but for Shikaku every moment is worth it.
Relationships: Nara Shikaku & Nara Shikamaru
Series: Naruto the Fox [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1343278
Comments: 24
Kudos: 299
Collections: Ashes' Library





	Fight, Flight, Freeze, or Fawn

**Author's Note:**

> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbITZoWNyO0

Shikaku slid open the door to the backyard and shifted his shadow to shield his eyes until the sunlight became less blinding. Was it a lazy waste of chakra? Yes. Did Shikaku do it every time he stepped outdoors on a sunny day? Absolutely. 

“About time!” called Yoshino. As Shikaku stepped out onto the grass and ushered Inoichi and Chouza to follow him, Yoshino stood up and brushed off her skirt with a glare at the green stains. “I’m going back in, Shikaku,” said Yoshino, already striding away. “Don’t let your son get lost in the tall grass.”

Inoichi and Chouza both watched Shikaku’s wife march indoors with blank expressions. When Yoshino slammed the door behind her, Inoichi grimaced. 

“Your wife’s dealing poorly with the terrible twos, then?” asked Chouza. Indeed, to look around the yard, the assumption wasn’t unreasonable. In this patch of the garden alone, Shikaku counted a solid dozen toys scattered around their feet. The plush doe near Shikaku’s feet was smeared with a bit of dirt. With a sigh, Shikaku sat down in a sunbeam and pulled the plush doe into his lap. Inoichi and Chouza also sat down, respectfully without blocking Shikaku’s sunshine. 

“No, it’s not that,” Shikaku murmured. He took a stab at brushing the dirt off of ‘Doe’, but the necessity of a wash was apparent. He’d try to wash and dry Doe during Shikamaru’s nap before his son could notice she was gone. Shikaku grasped the slightly cleaner Doe around the middle and made her slowly trot through the clovers in front of his knees. “Shikamaru’s sweet as anything, and no more troublesome than expected. Yoshino just,” Shikaku trailed off in a sigh and Chouza made a rumbling noise of inquiry, “she’s new to the Nara. Shikamaru isn’t what she expected from a little boy.”

“Are those expectations-“ Inoichi started, but Shikaku stopped him with a sharp Konoha standard sign. The lumpy green blanket one meter away was twitching. 

“Meh,” Shikaku called, shaking Doe slightly and making her trot toward the blanket lump. “Meh.”

Inoichi’s muffled snort almost covered up the tiny, high-pitched answering ‘meh’ from the blanket lump. 

Shikaku didn’t bother hiding his grin from his two closest friends as his son’s tiny head popped out from beneath his outside-blanket. Shikamaru’s hair was still too short and fluffy to put up into a single ponytail, so Yoshino generally put the upper half into a tiny puffball ponytail and let the underlayers drift freely around Shikamaru’s shoulders. Today, the half-up style was inundated with fallen leaves. Two longer leaves were precariously perched near Shikamaru’s temples, almost like-

“Shikamaru, did you grow antlers?” Shikaku gleefully asked. Inoichi and Chouza each made muffled noises behind him. 

“Mmm,” grunted Shikamaru. Shikaku was pleased, his son was having an unusually vocal day. Based on Shikaku and his brother’s own childhoods, he was predicting Shikamaru would jump directly into speaking full sentences within the next six months. There was no need to rush these things. Shikamaru could hit his milestones at his own pace, safe in the peacetime Shikaku fought a war to create. 

Shikamaru’s fingers poked around the edges of his blanket and gathered up barely enough fabric to clutch the blanket beneath his chin. A few leaves drifted to the ground, including his son’s makeshift antlers, when Shikamaru shook his head wildly back and forth in the fresh air. 

“Yeah, sleeping with your face under your blanket is pretty stuffy, huh Shikamaru?” 

“Dad,” Shikamaru mumbled. The blanket was finally abandoned by his son in favor of standing and toddling unerringly toward the plush toy Shikamaru had his eyes fixed on. Doe was Shikamaru’s favorite toy, and surprisingly intact for being so well-loved. Shikaku took one of Doe’s front legs and waved it up and down. Shikamaru raised one bare, freckled arm and waved back. His sleeves were tied back with a green ribbon that matched both the ribbon tying up his hair and the grass stains all over his bare toes. 

Shikamaru reached Shikaku and plopped down onto the grass in front of him, fearlessly accepting Doe from Shikaku’s hands. Those unfathomably small toes got tucked beneath Shikaku’s leg while Shikamaru fussed with the dirt on Doe’s face. Shikamaru’s trust in Shikaku was wholehearted, unconscious, and utterly unique. Ironically, the only comparable experience Shikaku had was with the equally fragile young fawns of the Nara herd. Shikamaru was so small and breakable, and yet he lived with the certainty of Shikaku’s love for him meaning safety, so unlike the love Shikaku remembered from his own father. 

Shikamaru finished his examination of Doe and looked back up at Shikaku. This was an indication from his son that touching was now acceptable, if not necessarily desired. 

“Clothes,” Shikaku warned his son of where to expect touches, then gently pulled Shikamaru’s neckline into a more comfortable position. Shikaku’s grin became truly goofy when he next grasped both of Shikamaru’s feet and they fit in a single palm. Such tiny bones seemed as impossible to Shikaku now as they had the day Shikamaru was born. The two socks Shikaku retrieved from a pocket were knit to resemble spotted deer fur, and each was only so big as Shikaku’s thumb. Whatever Shikaku’s face was doing, it had Shikamaru puffing out his cheeks and pouting up at Shikaku while he gently pulled the socks onto his son’s cold feet. 

For Shikaku’s son, it was routine and troublesome when his Dad helped him put on socks. For Shikaku, the sheer number of routines he had with his son had yet to diminish each moment’s individual worth. 

The window of time for Shikamaru accepting touches was over, as evidenced by Shikamaru twisting his lower lip up to the side, and Shikaku released his son’s ankles without a fuss. As a shinobi, Shikamaru would spend a majority of his life fighting to maintain his bodily autonomy. Shikaku never wanted to be a person his son felt he must escape from. If Shikamaru wanted another nap-cuddle session, he’d let Shikaku know and Shikaku would happily oblige. For now, his son wanted to play, and so when Shikamaru stood up and handed Doe to Shikaku for safe keeping, Shikaku took Doe and cradled her like a treasure he’d been hired to guard. 

“Shikaku,” came the whisper in his ear from Inoichi, though Shikaku did no more than tilt his head slightly to indicate his attention, reluctant to pry his gaze from Shikamaru wandering off to select a new activity. “I need our kids to have another playdate as soon as possible, I’m begging you. Our kids are so cute, a single photo could compromise every foreign shinobi in Tn’I!”

Carefully hiding a grin, Shikaku internally agreed but externally raised an eyebrow and got down to business. “Speaking of our guests in interrogation, any news on the poison we found in those corpses last month?”

“Not exactly,” Inoichi shook his head, “but you shouldn’t worry so much about work on the weekend, Shikaku. I’ll let ‘em stew in isolation for a few days before it’s your turn with them.”

“And I’ll soften them up for you.” Chouza, to punctuate his growled words, slammed his fist into his opposite palm with a resounding smack. 

In a patch of grass a few meters in front of them, Shikamaru dropped.

Shikaku jerked around and thumped to his knees at his son’s side before he even registered moving. Of his son, only his spiky hair and bowed spine were visible. All of Shikamaru’s limbs were tucked beneath him, and his face was firmly planted in the dirt where grass obscured Shikaku’s view of his son’s chubby cheeks. 

Nothing was wrong. A coil of barbed wire uncoiled around Shikaku’s heart. Considering the absence of any injuries, and the shallow, well hidden breaths his son was restricting himself to, Shikaku felt comfortable in his assessment that this was neither a worrying situation nor a new one. 

“Shikaku?”

Inoichi and Chouza were doing something behind Shikaku, trying to ask what they should do, but Shikaku ignored them in favor of running a final experienced eye over his son. Only once Shikaku’s shoulders relaxed did his friends begin pelting him with questions.

“Is Shikamaru okay? Should I call a medic?”

“Is he breathing!?”

Shikaku chuckled, and kept his reply to a warm whisper. “He’s breathing, just very shallowly. You ever seen a fawn hiding under a bush, and how they barely move?”

His friends made sounds of realization behind Shikaku. Shikamaru remained tucked into a green-brown ball that may well have managed to camouflage him were Shikaku not both a shinobi and his father. Certain Nara, when young, took on more deer-like aspects than others, and Shikamaru was a particularly Nara-like child. 

There was a time, Shikaku remembered, when Shikaku himself used to freeze and fall to the ground when startled, and the shadow of that memory grasped Shikaku’s limbs like the shuddering limbs and bile-coated throat of Shikaku’s childhood. 

With no conscious command from himself, Shikaku’s hand was hovering over Shikamaru’s neck.

Decades ago, when Shikaku was still young enough to freeze like a newborn fawn, his own father had grabbed him and hoisted him up. Every time, the man had thrown Shikaku to his feet and snarled at him to keep walking, to not falter in the face of fear, to never drop unless he was damned well dead or dying. By the time Shikaku was Shikamaru’s age, he’d thoroughly outgrown his more fawn-like tendencies. 

Above Shikamaru’s spine, Shikaku’s hand, still in the cold grasp of an old shadow, shook slightly. Shikamaru was holding his breath altogether, now. 

Compared to his son’s tiny back, Shikaku’s hand was massive and scarred and calloused. If Shikaku grabbed his son, he could break him in half with a twitch of a finger. Every bit of Shikamaru was soft and fresh, like the budding growth at the tips of tree branches.

Shikaku let his hand fall to rest between Shikamaru’s shoulders. The steady warmth and heartbeat beneath his palm eased away Shikaku’s shivers in an instant. 

“Oh,” Shikaku cooed, “Uncle Chouza startled you, huh?” He drew his hand slowly up and down Shikamaru’s back, and his son’s breathing restarted and began to deepen. “Oh, fawn, you’re okay Shikamaru. Take your time. Dad’s right here.”

It could have been seconds that Shikaku sat there and pet gentle circles on Shikamaru’s back, or it could have been hours. Likely, it was closer to the former, because for all Shikamaru cried easily, he needed help calming down less and less every day. Sure enough, Shikamaru’s limbs relaxed in degrees until ankles and elbows were visible once more, and muted snuffles could be heard from where Shikamaru’s face was being uprooted. 

“There you go,” Shikaku casually cheered his son on. “Nothing scary is happening, you can keep playing.”

With a squirm and a grunt, Shikamaru wriggled upright and got his knees under him. Shikaku kept his hand out and at the ready, but Shikamaru got his feet under him all on his own and swayed upright onto spindly legs. Shikaku had to bite his lip so hard it nearly bled to keep from laughing when Shikamaru remained utterly untethered from any human sense of balance, and instead stubbornly wobbled away as if he were on ice-skates. With no small sense of irony, Shikaku was forced to conclude that even in terms of fawns, his son may be especially uncoordinated. 

Shikamaru toddled away towards a pile of leaves, and Shikaku returned to his seat beside his friends. Inoichi and Chouza were both beaming at him with smiles more familiar to Shikaku than his own. 

Inoichi’s eyes were twinkling when he jabbed his elbow into Chouza’s side. “Neither of you can ever tell another soul I said this,” he said with melodramatic conspiracy, winking included, “but, Shikaku, your son might be the tiniest bit cuter than my Ino. For now.”

By now, Shikamaru had selected two new long leaves, brown and slightly curled at the edges, and was tucking them into the hair by his temples where his half-ponytail pulled it tight. One leaf on each side, the impression of a full-grown stag’s antlers. Shikamaru’s scowl of concentration wouldn’t have looked out of place in a war-cabinet or the Hokage’s office, but on a two-year-old, for now it was simply cute. 

“Chouji and Ino are wonderful,” Shikaku admitted with the ghost of a smirk, “but Shikamaru will always be cutest in my eyes.”


End file.
